REDKNAPP: It'll be bubbly to have Jose back - 7M sport

REDKNAPP: It'll be bubbly to have Jose back



I have a say

Posted Thursday, March 24, 2011 by The Sun

REDKNAPP: It'll be bubbly to have Jose back
MOUR THAN I BARGAINED FOR ... Mourinho hails Redknapp after a hard-fought win in October 2006

IT'S a pretty safe bet that Jose Mourinho will come back to manage in England one day.

The man has huge character and that seems to suit the passion and nature of our game.

English football has been the poorer for him having left Chelsea four years ago and we should welcome him back when he comes.

I have the utmost respect for him as a manager and I can recount a little experience I had with Jose that tells you about the man's personality.

Back in Easter 2007, I was Portsmouth manager and Mourinho was Chelsea chief - and engaged in one of his many tussles with Manchester United for the title.

On the Saturday, Pompey beat United 2-1 at Fratton Park. Not long after the game, I got a call from someone claiming to be Mourinho's secretary, asking for my address.

The following morning, a car turned up and the driver knocked at the door. When I answered, he gave me a big bottle of champagne and an attached note, which read: 'Thanks for the result, Jose'.

I haven't spoke to him much lately and am not sure if I will speak to him before my Tottenham team take on his Real Madrid side in the Champions League next month.

But he has the personality to handle the biggest jobs.

If he came back to England, it would be a pretty narrow field of clubs that could afford him, his transfer budget and the wages that go with it.

I could maybe see him going to United when Alex Ferguson eventually decides to call it a day - but there are not many clubs that could accommodate him.

But while it is a big part of the job having the best, highest-paid players in your team to win things, it takes a bit of know-how to knit that together and win titles.

And, don't forget, he won the Champions League with Porto in 2004.

How much of an amazing achievement is that?

I like people with character as we can't all be boring, stuffy old sorts in football. As well as winning things, managers have to do their bit selling the game to the fans and the world, to keep the money rolling in.

Mourinho is not everyone's cup of tea but anyone who thinks he isn't a good boss is either jealous or deluded. His record speaks for itself.

He has a great knowledge of the game and has a great talent of getting the best out of his players.

A week after he started at Chelsea in June 2004, he told Frank Lampard 'I'm going to make you the best attacking midfielder in the world'.

Frank came away feeling 10 feet tall and would regularly score 20 goals a season with Mourinho in the Stamford Bridge hot-seat.

Put simply, Jose knows how to build great teams. Just look at what he created at Chelsea.

He always maintained that winning the Premier League is a harder task than winning the European Cup because of the number of games in a season and the levels of consistency required.

Still, I had so much faith in him at Inter Milan last season that I bet on the Italians at 14-1 to win the Champions League, purely because of Mourinho.

It came in of course - as part of Inter's historic Treble - but I now wish I'd had more than 25p on it.

Mourinho is an enthusiastic and intelligent man, proving himself in every country in which he has managed.

But he seems to have struck a particular chord with England and our Premier League, even saying this week that he still loves it here and feels as if he has unfinished business.

I think the atmosphere at our grounds, the rivalries, the banter between crowds and the downright animosity are all right up his street.

He revelled in that siege mentality he constructed around himself at Stamford Bridge when the world - or at least, in his mind, the rest of the world - was against him and his team.

It would be great to see him managing in England again.

Mind you, I must confess when my Champions League bet came in, I didn't send him anything as a thank you!



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